And I'm happy to entertain the calls of "where's the data" in response to anecdotes. But the thing is, this article just takes the same information reported by Wired and says "it's really not that bad [presumably compared to human drivers], and even if it is that bad, I don't care because I hope AVs will be better than humans someday(TM)".
What really matters here is how disruptive the AVs are in terms of minutes of public transit delay per vehicle mile traveled (VMT), compared to human driven vehicles. Of course human drivers cause the majority of incidents on SF roads: they're the vast majority of VMTs, and they are the ones permitted to drive during the daytime that makes up the bulk of Muni service. Until there's data on real SF streets saying that AVs are causing less delays per VMT, then IMO, the criticism can't be ignored. Especially since we've been lead on by AV companies insisting that autonomous technology would be safer (and presumably less disruptive) than humans. We need to take their assertions with a grain of salt, given that they're trying to extract profits on our streets.
And plus, there's a whole area of the original wired article that is much harder to contradict. Dealing with the disruptions caused by AVs is so much more demoralizing than dealing with a human. A human realizes they've made a mistake, moves their car to the side, and awkwardly waves people by. An AV throws on its hazards and waits in the middle of an intersection until its "handlers" can be bothered to intervene. It's a faceless and inhumane experience that will never be quicker than a human driver making an innocent mistake. No amount of data can change that.
https://www.wired.com/story/dashcam-footage-shows-driverless...
And I'm happy to entertain the calls of "where's the data" in response to anecdotes. But the thing is, this article just takes the same information reported by Wired and says "it's really not that bad [presumably compared to human drivers], and even if it is that bad, I don't care because I hope AVs will be better than humans someday(TM)".
What really matters here is how disruptive the AVs are in terms of minutes of public transit delay per vehicle mile traveled (VMT), compared to human driven vehicles. Of course human drivers cause the majority of incidents on SF roads: they're the vast majority of VMTs, and they are the ones permitted to drive during the daytime that makes up the bulk of Muni service. Until there's data on real SF streets saying that AVs are causing less delays per VMT, then IMO, the criticism can't be ignored. Especially since we've been lead on by AV companies insisting that autonomous technology would be safer (and presumably less disruptive) than humans. We need to take their assertions with a grain of salt, given that they're trying to extract profits on our streets.
And plus, there's a whole area of the original wired article that is much harder to contradict. Dealing with the disruptions caused by AVs is so much more demoralizing than dealing with a human. A human realizes they've made a mistake, moves their car to the side, and awkwardly waves people by. An AV throws on its hazards and waits in the middle of an intersection until its "handlers" can be bothered to intervene. It's a faceless and inhumane experience that will never be quicker than a human driver making an innocent mistake. No amount of data can change that.